Meeting Notes

Members present:  Larry Feldman, Susan Chapnick, Ileen Gladstone, David Begelfer, Jeff Hardin, Michelle O'Brien, Sigalle Reiss, Kerry Tull, and Janine Commerford.  Forty-two people signed the sign-in sheet.

Welcome and Opening Remarks - Assistant Commissioner Janine Commerford welcomed the group and asked the three new members (Michelle O'Brien, Sigalle Reiss, and Kerry Tull) to introduce themselves.  Updates included:

• The next SAC meeting is scheduled for November 20
• MassDEP capital budget was approved, so we expect to complete scanning the 16M pages of site files for eDEP by the end of FY 2009
• Workgroup status:
  > Internal AUL guidance update workgroup hopes to have a draft for public comment at the November 20 SAC meeting.  An external AUL workgroup will subsequently be established to further develop the document
  > Historic Fill workgroup will meet in early November; watch for an email
  > LNAPL workgroup will be established in November and chaired by Ken Marra
• Training:
  > CERO technical LSP event (8:00 - 10:00 am) on November 6 featuring notification and AUL issues - 2 credits
  > Data Usability & Representativeness at UMass on October 20 and in Westford on October 28 - 8 credits
  > Maintaining Compliance and eDEP in regions and Boston in late November - 2 credits
  > Standard of Care at UMass on October 22 - 3 credits
• November is Brownfields month; many events are scheduled throughout the month
• Homeowners Oil Spill Insurance bill could be enacted any time before December 31 if no objections are raised members of the legislature

Ileen Gladstone stated her concern that many MassDEP draft documents are issued for comment before stakeholders are consulted.  She requested that documents scheduled to be presented at SAC meetings be sent to the members in advance of those meetings. Janine responded that while some topics lend themselves to stakeholder involvement in the early phases, some topics - such as updating the AUL guidance to conform to current regulations - are more efficiently handled initially by an internal workgroup.  In most cases, regardless of whether a guidance document is the result of an internal or external workgroup, Mass DEP provides opportunities for stakeholders to review and comment before finalization.

Download of audio of SAC Welcome and Opening Remarks from Archive.org
Technical difficulties resulted in a failure to record these remarks

MCP Program Trends - Janine presented a number of charts and graphs as part of a PowerPoint presentation that covered a range of metrics over the last 15 years.  Some highlights: half of notifications are in the 2-hour category; 73 percent of closures occur within a year of notification; the number of open sites has been reduced by half to approximately 4,000; and closures began exceeding notifications in 2001.

In May, 55 percent of submittals received by MassDEP came in via eDEP; the current percentage is below 70 percent.  Janine is concerned because as of January 1, 2009, 100 percent of all MCP documents must be submitted electronically, and at the current rate we will not meet this goal.   Janine requested assistance from the LSPA and other interested parties, and agreed to a suggestion that BWSC develop an eDEP 101 fact sheet to help explain the system to a lay audience.

Stephanie MacLeod and her staff will be offering eDEP classes this fall to train LSPs and other stakeholders in the mechanics of using eDEP and recommend ways to address file size constraints (current maximum is 30 megabytes).

The sites database on BWSC's webpage will soon have a link with the eDEP database.  MassDEP is exploring options for a content management (indexing) system that will eventually allow external and internal users to access all BWSC documents, including those submitted through eDEP, and those that are in the process of being scanned, as well as MassDEP correspondence.

Andrew Loew conducted a PowerPoint presentation on how Brownfields remediation helps support Smart Energy.  The three principal components of this strategy involve location, adaptive re-use, and alternative energy production.

Download of audio of Brownfields Power Point Presentation from Archive.org
http://www.archive.org/details/MassdepBwscac-September252008-BrownfieldsAndSmartEnergy
(mp3 audio file and other formats)

Air Petroleum Hydrocarbon Method - Don Muldoon conducted a PowerPoint presentation discussing the Draft Final APH Method.  A workgroup met over the past year to finalize this method, develop a document within the Compendium of Analytical Methods (CAM) that provides "presumptive certainty" criteria for APH data, and establish CAM quality control and performance standard guidelines for EPA Method TO-15.  The Draft Final APH Method document should be posted on the BWSC website for review on or about October 17, with comments due to Don by November 21.  The Final APH Method is anticipated by the end of 2008.

Download of audio of SAC presentation on Air Petroleum Hydrocarbon Method from Archive.org
http://www.archive.org/details/MassdepBwscac-September252008-AphAnalyticalMethod
 (mp3 audio file and other formats)

Break

Indoor Air Guidance Update - Liz Callahan provided an update on BWSC's guidance related to vapor intrusion.  Liz began by discussing two draft documents issued for comment in June 2008 - "Typical Indoor Air Concentrations" and "Indoor Air Threshold Values for the Evaluation of a Vapor Intrusion Pathway".  

"Typical Indoor Air Concentrations" was revised to address comments offered at the March meeting (or submitted in writing) on an earlier January 2008 draft document:

• Includes 50th percentile values in addition to 75th and 90th
• Incorporates an eighth study (Kinney)
• Allows values to be used as a "line of evidence" in evaluating potential vapor intrusion
• BWSC expects to finalize this document in October.

The second document, "Indoor Air Threshold Values for the Evaluation of a Vapor Intrusion Pathway", offers guidance on the use of "Threshold Values" for evaluating indoor air results.  These values are intended to allow parties to rule out further consideration of the indoor air pathway with respect to risk characterization or Critical Exposure Pathways.  Liz indicated that comments on the document indicate concern and confusion as to how it would be applied.   BWSC intends to revise the guidance based on comments received to date and post it as an "interim draft", because some LSPs have indicated an interest in using the guidance at current sites.  The utility of providing threshold values can be further considered by the workgroup developing Comprehensive Vapor Intrusion Guidance (see below).  The interim draft will be retired/superseded by the Comprehensive Guidance. 

Liz announced that Gerard Martin with BWSC in the Southeast Regional Office will chair a new workgroup tasked to develop Comprehensive Vapor Intrusion Guidance.  A scoping meeting will be held in November, with a final document slated for release in December 2009.  Stakeholders who want to join the group should contact Gerard at gerard.martin@state.ma.us.

Related Note:  Soon after the Advisory Committee meeting, MassDEP finalized the document "Revised MassDEP Cancer Unit Risk for Tetrachloroethylene", September 2008, which is available online at: http://www.mass.gov/dep/toxics/sourcest.htm#chemical

Download of audio of SAC presentation on Indoor Air Guidance Update from Archive.org
http://www.archive.org/details/MassdepBwscac-September252008-IndoorAir
 (mp3 audio file and other formats)

Significant Figures in Risk Characterization - Nancy Bettinger discussed the technical update review draft (handout).  This technical update describes the basis for MassDEP's recommendation of the use of two significant figures appropriate in establishing Exposure Point Concentrations and risk estimates.

Comments from members and the audience indicated concern about the document from both a technical and policy standpoint.  Nancy requested that written comments on the draft be sent to her at nancy.bettinger@state.ma.us by October 24, 2008.

Download of audio of SAC presentation on Significant Figures in Risk Characterization from Archive.org
http://www.archive.org/details/MassdepBwscac-September252008-SignificantFigures
 (mp3 audio file and other formats)

Addenda - MassDEP will establish an eDEP workgroup to identify issues to bring to ITO's attention.  Kerry Tull will coordinate workgroup membership through the LSPA.

Handouts/Overheads

APH Update

MS Powerpoint 113 KB | PDF 38 KB

Indoor Air Guidance Update

MS Powerpoint 124 KB | PDF 33 KB

Significant Figures in Risk Characterization

MS Word 131 KB | PDF188 KB